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DELIVERED IN NEW-HAVEN. 



3\IliX 41\\, 18^5. 



By LEONARD EfACON, 

fastor of the First Church in JVew-Haven. 



Open thy month, judge righteously, and plead the cause of tlte 
poor and needy. Prov. xxxi. 9. 



•77.C 



"•'*W^5^^^* 



NEW-HAVEN 



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PRINTED BT T. G. WOODWARD AND GO. 
18.25. 




1 



DTF The substance of the following- discourse was delivered also in Bos- 
ton, July 5th, 1824. The author has now consented to its publication, in the 
hope that it may do something towards extending and increasing the interest 
which so many minds are beginning to feel for Africa. He is not so pre- 
sumptuous as to expect that these few pages will avail to awaken in others the 
enthusiasm of which he is conscious, and which has gained strength by years 
of deliberate reflection. His prayer is that his fellow Christians, and espe- 
cially his brethren in the ministry, may be persuaded to examine a subject on 
which too many form their opinions without deliberation or inquiry. 



1 



A PLEA FOR AFRICA. 



*%%•* 



I COME before you to day, my friends and fellow citizens., 
that I may plead for Africa. And as I could not ask for an audi- 
ence more favourable than an assembly ef American Christians, so 
I could not seek an occasion more auspicious than that which this 
anniversary has ofFereil. 

To day we remember that we are Americans. The voice of 
jubilee is heard in our land, from the ocean to the mountains. 
Eight millions of freemen are rejoicing in their liberty, and call- 
ino- to mind those high recollections of the past that glorify our 
national history, and those loftier anticipations that light up before 
us the obscurity of the futuie. Sharing in the enthusiasm which 
the occasion inspires, we seem almost to forget our individual ex- 
istence in the consciousness that we are members of a great and 
happy community. The man who rejoices to day, rejoices not in 
the enjoyments by which he is distinguished from his fellows around 
him, but in those common blessings which he shares with the 
meanest and the proudest of his countrymen. His personal joys 
and selfish purposes are forgotten for the moment, while his spirit 
rises to a wider range of thought, and to the exercise of nobler af- 
fections. A nation utters her voice of gladness to day, and he 
who rejoices with her, rejoices in the happiness of thousands whom 
he has never seen, and with whom he has no fellowship, but the 
fellowship of a common nature and the fellowship of a common 
country. 

I may hail the occasion then, as auspicious to my cause, inas- 
much as the feelings of patriotism which it inspires in every bosom. 



6 

are akin to tliose still nobler feelinj^s, which my, argument must 
presuppose within you, and to which it must be mainly addressed. 
But still more may I congratulate myself, that I am permitted to 
plead before those, in whose hearts the enthusiasm of the patriot, 
is blending to day, with the devotion of the Christian, and who 
have come up to the temple of God, that they may learn to sancti- 
fy the fervency of the one, with the purity of the other. 

We might dwell in our thoughts, on those topics of exultation, 
which the occasion affords — on the unrivalled prosperity of our 
country, and the perfect beauty of our political institutions — on 
the bright memory of the past, and the still brighter prospect of 
the future ; — and from all these contemplations learn no holier les- 
son, than to indulge the unhallowed exultation of national pride, 
or to cherish the bloody fanaticism of national ambition. But 
there are other feelings, more dignified in their aspect, and more 
ennobling in their influence, which the solemnities that now en- 
gage us, are designed to awaken. We look back on the ages that 
are past. Two centuries ago, this wide continent was a wilder- 
ness, unvisited, and unexplored. Then came our pilgrim fathers, 
and erected here the ensigns of their freedom, and the altars of 
their religion. They contended with difficulties to which even fable 
can hardly yield a parallel ; but their faith, and courage, and de- 
votion, were mightier than their trials, and in the midst of peril, 
they became the founders of an empire. We look around on the 
present condition of our country. Our coast is adorned with an 
hundred cities, all humming with the noise of trade, and our bays 
and rivers are sprinkled with the sails of commerce. Where the 
wilderness lay in its dark and untrodden luxuriance, a thousand 
villa«-es are smiling in the face of heaven, and the fields are whiten- 
ing for the harvest. The land where the Puritans found a refuge 
has become the home of freedom ; and under the republican insti- 
tutions which they established, eight millions of citizens are en- 
joying a political happiness such as the historian has never re- 
corded, and (1 may say) such as the philosopher has never imagined. 



The halls of science, and the schools of elementary instruction, 
which the Puritans erected, are still the memorials of tlieir wis- 
dom ; and the new efforts that are made from year to year for the 
advancement and for the general diffusion of knowledge, testify 
that the men of this age have not entirely degenerated from the 
spirit of their fathers. And above all, the religion of the Puritans, 
which kindled in them their stern spirit of independence, and their 
ardent love of knowledge ; the religion which led them over the 
wide and then hardly navigated waters of the Atlantic ; the reli- 
gion which made them heroes in enterprise and martyrs in en- 
durance ;— that religion is exerting over our national character to 
day, an influence more sacred, and a dominion more powerful, 
than it has possessed before since the time when our fathers lifted 
up their voices in the wilderness, and with no walls around them 
but the everlasting hills, and with no roof above them but the arch 
of heaven, offered their simple and solemn worship to him who 
dwelleth not in temples made with hands. We look forward ; — 
and it seems as if all that is inspiring in our history, and all that is 
happy in our present condition, were but the dawning of our day. 
We are in the very infancy of our being, and as no nation could 
ever boast of a history more abundant in high and holy remem- 
brances than ours ; as no political institutions were ever so pei feet, 
and no political happiness was ever so unmingled as ours ; so to no 
people under heaven was it ever permitted to contemplate a pros- 
pect of future prosperity more magnificent than that which is 
opening before us. These lofty recollections, this thrilling con- 
sciousness, these inspiring hopes, we need not check; for who 
hath forbidden us to indulge them } But in this consecrated place, 
as our national happiness rises before us in all its aspects of past, 
and present, and to come, we cannot fail to reflect— it is the doing of 
Jehovah, and it is marvellous in our eyes. The doing of Jehovah ! 
Where now is the pride that was stirring within us ? The doing 
of Jehovah ! The thought raises us to a higher sphere of contem- 
plation. It gives us a dignity of national existence which the uii- 



V, i 



8 

believer has never dreamed of. It connects us with the vast de- 
signs of that Eternal Providence which will rescue humanity from 
darkness and misery and death, and renovate our world in the im- 
age of heaven. It was God who " sifted a kingdom," the freest 
and noblest on the globe, and gathered out our fathers like the 
wheat from the chaff. It was God who defended them from the 
perils of the deep, and the perils of the wilderness. It was God 
who made them to flourish, and broke the weapons that were 
formed against them. It is God who hath spread out our land 
like the garden of Eden, who hath made it free as its winds and 
its waters, and filled it with the light of science and the glories of 
his own eternal truth. It is God who hath opened before us that 
high career upon which we are entering, and who hath given us 
renown among the nations. With these reflections teaching us to 
check the workings of our pride, extinguishing the fires of a law- 
less ambition, and elevating our contemplations to the grand pur- 
poses of God's benevolence, we feel that it is neither arrogance 
nor enthusiasm to say, that He whom the Puritans worshipped, 
brought them forth from their house of bondage, and planted them 
here on the shores of New-England, that the nation which should 
spring from them might lead in the march of human improvement ; 
and that the country blessed in their prayers, and hallowed by 
their graves, might send forth from its borders the institutions of 
freedom and the light of salvation, to the ends of the world. 

I say, then, my fellow Christians, it is right that you should seek 
to shed over your gladness the sanctifying influence of devotion, 
and to connect the associations of this day with those principles 
and efforts of benevolence that raise us to a fellowship with God. 
And standing here to speak for Africa to day, I will not affect a 
(liflidcnce which I do not fee! ; for I know that with such a cause 
and on such an occasion 1 cannot plead before you in vain. I 
might indeed be diffident, if it were my task to excite within you, 
by the powers of language and fancy, the feelings of ^ transient 
honcvolence : nay, I should despair of success, if I imagined I 



had any thing to do but simply to lay before you the degradation 
for which I would engage your sympathies, and the plans of doing 
good for which I would secure your efforts. 

In describing the misery of that devoted race, whose cause it is 
my lot to advocate, I can only tell you a story of simple, unallevi- 
ated, unromantic wretchedness. There are no spirit-stirring as- 
sociations to break the monotony of the description. I can tell of 
no distant and shadowy antiquity, when Africa was the cradle of 
the human race, and the seat of science and arts and empire. I 
cannot compare the darkness that is now resting on those tribes, 
with some period of ancient glory ; nor can I enlighten the picture 
of their present degradation, by alluding to some former age of Ar- 
tadian felicity. There are no lighter shades to variegate the 
gloom. The wretchedness is so great and so unmingled, that 
the mind shrinks from the conception, and seems almost ready to 
take refuge in a vague and quiet incredulity. And when I have 
told you what this wretchedness is, my plea is ended for the pre- 
sent, — I shall urge no other argument. 

The country for which I am pleading extends froui the Desert 
of Sahara to the Cape of Good Hope, and from the Atlantic to the 
Indian Ocean. With the exception of here and there a tract of 
complete and desolate barrenness, this m ide region is fertile, al- 
most without a parallel, and the exuberance of its productions is 
such as we can only with difficulty imagine. It is a country va- 
ried, like our own fair land, with mountains and forests, and wa- 
tered by 

" Streams that to the sea roll ocean-like." 

Abounding in all the resources that might minister employment or 
sustenance to a civilized and happy population, it is occupied by 
fifty millions of men, as wild as the forests which they inhabit, and 
almost as far removed from the high character and high destiny of 
our nature, as the lion and the tiger with whom they contend for the 
mastery of the soil. They are men indeed with all the instincts 
of humanity, and they walk beneath their burning sky with ihf. 



10 

port and bearing of manhood. Theirs are tlie affections of kin- 
dred, the love of country and of home, and the kindness of savage 
nospitality. But they are barbarians; and with the nobler in- 
stincts of our nature and the rude virtues of their condition, they 
combine all that is degrading in human imbecility, and all that is 
horrible in human depravity, unrefined by civilization and unre- 
strained by the influence of Christian truth. They are men in- 
deed, and when individuals from among them have been placed in 
circumstances favourable to the development of their powers, they 
have fully vindicated their title to all the honours of our nature. 
But in Africa the basest superstition has conspired with the dark- 
est ignorance to stupify the intellect, as well as to brutalize the 
affections ; and in both cases their influence has been as deadly in 
its operation, as it is unlimited in its extent. 

Now, what one is there among you, my hearers, who needs to 
be informed that these fifty millions of immortal beings, thus 
brought down to the very level of the brutes that perish, have a 
claim upon the sympathies of Christians ? Do you find it diflicult 
to conceive of their condition ? It is just what yours would be, if 
all the arts, and knowledge, and refinement of our land were to 
vanish, and the darkness of paganism were to settle on all the 
shrines of our devotion. It is just what it must be, where treach- 
ery and lust are unforbidden, where rapine and murder are unre- 
strained, and where all the horrors of a savage warfare are perpet- 
ual. 

Yes, in xVfrica the horrors of savage warfare are perpetual. Not 
that these tribes are created with a peculiar ferocity of disposition : 
so far from it, their nature seems to possess an uncommon share of 
what is mild and amiable. And yet, you might traverse the whole 
region of which I speak, and you would find it, in all its districts, 
a theatre of terror, flight, conflagration, murder, and whatever is 
still more dreadful in earthly suffering. You might come to one 
place, where there was a village yesterday, and find only its smok- 
ing ruins, and the calcined bones of its murdered population. You 



11 

might pass on to another, and think that here there must be peace, 
but while the inhabitants are beginning to gather around you, with 
a timid curiosity, there is an outcry of alarm — the foe is upon them 
— their houses are in flames — their old men are smitten with the 
sword — their infants are thrown to the tigers, and their young men 
are swept into captivity. You might follow the captives — weep- 
ing, bleeding — to the sea-shore ; and there is the slave ship. We 
have heard of the slave trade, and of its abolition ; and we have 
been accustomed to regard it as a tiling of other years. We have 
heard that thirty years ago, the slave trade did exist, and its exis- 
tence was the foulest blot upon the picture of our world. We 
have heard that those who have been laboring for the abolition of 
this traffic, have gained many a signal triumph over the obstinacy 
of the interested, and the prejudices of the ignorant; so that now, 
the two most enlightened and commercial nations of the world, 
who have one origin, one language, one religion, and we might al- 
most say one freedom, are also united in declaring the slave trade 
piracy; and have thus denounced it before the world, as an out- 
rao-e against the law of nations and of nature. All this is true, 
and at the same time it is equally true, that tlie slave trade is car- 
ried on, at this hour, with a cruelty, if possible, more intense and 
aggravated. Every year no less than sixty thousand of its victims 
are carried in chains across the ocean. Now, while I am speak- ^ '' / 
ing to this happy assembly, there is weeping and lamentation, un- 
der the palm trees of Africa; for mothers have been plundered of 
their children, and will not be comforted. To day, the slave ships 
are hovering over that devoted coast, from the Senegal to the Zaire. 
To night, as the African lies down in his cabin, he will feel no se- 
curity; and as he sleeps, he will dream of conflagration and 
blood, till suddenly he awakes, and his roof is blazing above him, 
his wife is bleeding at his feet, his children lie fettered and help- 
less before him, and ere he can grasp the weapons of despair, the 
cold steel of the murderer is in his vitals. 



12 

It would be utterly impossible for me, or indeed for any man, to 
transcend, in description, the actual horrors of this trade, as they 
have been exhibited, again and again, in the testimony of sworn 
witnesses, and, as many of you have seen them exhibited from the 
records of judicial tribunals. You cannot therefore suspect me oi 
attempting to impose on your feelings. I wish only to impress it 
on your minds, that the slave trade, though abolished by law, has 
never been suppressed in fact ; — and then to leave it for you to 
judge whether the cruelty of which you have so often heard, and 
which was so great when the traffic was acknowledged by law, and 
defended by argument, is likely to be less, now that the traffic has 
become contraband and the subject of universal execration ; so 
that the slave-trader is governed not only by the natural baseness 
of his cupidity, but by the terror of detection and the greater risk 
of loss, and by the consciousness of being outlawed from the sym- 
pathies of human society. 

This horrible commerce in the blood of men has existed for ages ;. 
and the consequence is, that there are now descendants of Africa 
in every quarter of the globe. For them I plead to day, as well as 
for their brethren on their native continent ; because wherever the 
children of Africa are found, they are one nation ; a separate, dis- 
tinct, peculiar people. I plead for the whole race ; and my argu- 
ment with you in their behalf is, that wherever they are found they 
are partakers in tlie misery of one common degradation. To es- 
tablish this, I need not carry you out of the streets and lanesof our 
own city. You would scorn tlie imputation, and justly, if I should 
suggest tliat there is any thing here which subjects the African to 
peculiar disadvantages. On the contrary, it would seem far other- 
wise ; inasmuch as slavery never existed here to any considerable 
extent, and for years it has been a thing unknown. Yet when ^-ou 
look over this city, what do you find to be the actual state and cha- 
racter of its coloured population ? How many of the privilege^ 
which belong to other classes of society do they enjoy .'' How 
much of the happiness in which you are now rejoicing is theirs ? 



13 

How many of the motives, which are urging you to honest industry 
or to honourable enterprise, are operating upon them ? Who 
among them ever aspires to wealth or office, or ever dreams of in- 
tellectual pursuits or intellectual enjoyment ? In short, are they 
not, in the estimation of the community and in their own conscious- 
ness, aliens and outcasts in the midst of the people ? Now I am 
willing that you should take the condition of the children of Africa 
here, as a fair specimen of their condition, wherever they are scat- 
tered. I ^m willing you should believe, for the moment, that the 
negro is nowhere more ignorant, nowhere more despised or op- 
pressed, than here. But at the same time, I ask you to remember 
that within our own borders there are nearly two millions of these 
beings, and in the Archipelago of the West-Indies, not less than yi'\^ / 
two millions more ; and then, when you have computed the amount 
of wretchedness which belongs to these four millions of degraded 
men, to judge for yourselves whether the subjects of this degrada- 
tion have no claim on the sympathies and eftbrts of those who have 
been taught to love their neighbour as themselves, y// 

And yet such a computation would fall far short of the actual 
amount of that wretchedness which, if I could, I would set before 
you. Of these four millions, the vast majority are slaves. And 
what is it to be a slave? ^Ve know what it is to be free. We 
know what it is to walk forth in the consciousness of independence, 
and to act with the feeling that we are responsible only to our God 
and to the community of which we are equal members. We know 
the inspiration that attends the efforts of him who can act for him- 
self, — who labours for his family, — who identifies his interests 
with the welfare of a nation, — wlio spreads out his affections over 
the wide world of being. But we know not what it is to be a 
slave. /AVe can conceive indeed of stripes, and corporal endur- 
ance, and long days of burning toil ; but Ivow can we conceive of 
that bondage of the heart, that captivity of the soul, which make 
the slave a wretch indeed ? His intellect is a blank, and we may, 
perhaps, form some conception of his ignorance. The capacities 



M, t 



14 

of his moral nature are a blank, and we may, perhaps, imagine 
that blindness. But even when we have conceived of this intel- 
lectual ignorance and this moral blindness, we know not all the 
degradation of the slave. We sometimes find an individual whose 
spirit has been broken and blasted. Some affection which engross- 
ed his soul, and with vvhich all his other affections were entwined, 
has been withered, and his heart is desolate. The iiope on which 
all his other hopes were centred, has been destroyed, and his be- 
ing is a wreck. If you have ever seen such a man, and noticed 
how he seemed to lose the high attributes of manhood, how his soul 
died within him, and he sunk down, as it were, from the elevation 
of his former existence, — you may conjecture, perhaps, how much 
of the dignity and happiness of our nature, even in minds purified 
by moral cultivation, and enlarged by intellectual improvement, 
//- ^ depends on the love of social enjoyment and the softening influence 

of affection ; and you may thus be able faintly to imagine the de- 
gradation of the slave, whose mind has scarcely been enlightened 
by one ray of knowledge, whose soul has never been expanded by 
one adequate conception of his moral dignity and moral relations, 
and in whose heart hardly one of those affections that soften our 
character, or of those hopes that animate and bless our being, has 
been allowed to germinate. /// 

You have seen, my fellow Christians, something of the misery of 
that continent, and the degradation of that race, for which I plead 
before you to day. You have not seen it all ; for it passes the pow- 
ers of human fancy to conceive, and still more of human language 
to describe. But the few familiar facts which I have attempted to 
brill"- lo your remembrance, are enough to awaken all the sympa- 
thies of men, and all the benevolence of Christians. We have 
seen a continent of misery, a race degraded from the level of hu- 
manity ; and it remains for me only to show how we can operate 
to alleviate this misery and to remove this degradation. 

The problem is, to give peace and happiness to the continent of 
Africa, and to elevate all her children to the rank \\hich God has 



15 

«iven them in the scale of existence. As one of these objects can- 
not be gained without affecting the other ; so, if we would be sue- 
cessful in the pursuit of either, we must aim at the attainment of 
botli. Cover Africa with the institutions of civilized freedom, and 
fill it with the light of knowledge and religion, and the whole negro 
race is raised in a moment, from its hopeless depth of degradation. 
And on the other hand, give freedom and intelligence and all the 
riehts and honours of humanity to the exiled descendants of Africa, 
and you have completely provided for the salvation of the conti- 
nent from which they sprung. After we have examined briefly 
these two propositions, we shall be able more distinctly to perceive 
the importance of comprehending both the objects of which I have 
spoken, in one system of exertion. 

First ; by civilizing and christianizing the African contin- 
ent, the degradation of Africans in other countries may be removed. 
Such a civilization of that continent implies, at its outset, the 
final abolition of the slave trade ; in its progress, the erection of 
free, independent and intelligent nations ; and in its completion, 
all the industry and enterprise of a thronging, active, enlightened 
population. What will be the influence of such changes on the 
condition of this degraded race in other lands ? 

Let the slave trade be abolished, and that which has been at once 
^e cause of their present wretchedness, and one grand obstacle in 
the way of their improvement, is done away. While these men 
are sold like cattle in the shambles, what can you do for the gene- 
ral elevation of their character ? While thousands of fresh victims 
are continually poured in to swell the tide of misery, what can you 
do for the alleviation of this wo ? Let the fountain be dried up 
from which the misery has flowed, and you may operate on the 
evil to be remedied with some prospect of success. 

Let there be erected one free and intelligent African empire, 
and the reproach of the negro will cease. There is a scorn which 
follows the very name of an African. He is hunted down by a 
contempt which he can never escape. He is treated — whatever 



16 

may be your opinion about his native character, lie is in fact treated 
as an inferior being. lie is one of that people who have been me- 
ted out and trodden down, plundered and sold, persecuted and op- 
pressed from the beginning of time. And the consciousness, which 
he cannot evade, that he is despised by others, teaches him, at 
length, to despise iiimself, and robs him of the dignity of human 
character. Now let there be erected one Christian African repub- 
lic — powerful, enlightened, and happy, like ours — whose flag shall 
wave in the breezes of every ocean, whose commerce shall carry 
wealth to every port, whose ambassadors shall demand respect in 
every capital, whose patriots and sages, whose poets and artists, 
shall sliare the admiration of every people; and this reproach, de- 
grading as crime, and cruel as the grave, will cease. The negro, 
exultins: in the consciousness of manhood, will stretch out his hand 
unto him who hath made of one blood all nations, to dwell on the 
face of the earth. 

Once more : Let Africa be filled with the industry of a free and 
enterprising population, and slavery can exist no longer. This 
slavery is the bitterest ingredient in that misery which we deplore. 
In all that we have contemplated there is nothing more oppressive 
to our best feelings, than the thought, that so many millions of our 
fellow men are the subjects of a thraldom which despoils them of the 
attributes of intellectual and moral, and even of social existence, 
and makes them the mere machines of avarice. Bur let Africa 

BE CIVILIZKU, AND SLAVERY MUST BK ANNIHILATED. It is a prin- 
ciple which the progress of political science has clearly and indis- 
putably established — a principle that illustrates at once the wis- 
dom of the Creator and the blindness of human cupidity — that it 
is cheaper to hire the labour of freemen than it is to compel the 
labour of slaves. From this principle it results, that the produc- 
tions of slave labour can never enter into competitinn, on e(jual 
terms, with the productions of free labour. An illustration of 
this is furnished by the fart, tliat the sugar of the West-Indies, 
which is produced by the labour of slaves, demands the assistance 



17 



«f a high protecting duty, before it can contend in the English 
market with the sugar of the East, which is raised by the hands 
of freemen. We see then, that the system of slavery can 
be supported in a country, only so long as the slaveholders can 
retain either a complete or partial monopoly of such articles as 
they are able to raise by the labour of their drudges., And thus, 
whenever the civili/.ed and enterprising population of Africa shall 
send forth their productions to compete in every market, with 
the sugar, and cotton, and coffee, of the West-Indies and South- 
ern America, the planters will be compelled, by that spirit of im- 
provement which always springs from competition, to substitute 
the cheaper process for the more expensive, to adopt the labour 
of freemen instead of the labour of slaves, in a word, to convert 
their slaves into freemen. 

The conclusion from the principle which I have attempted to 
illustrate and apply is, let Africa be civilized and every African 
throughout the world will be made a freeman, not by some sudden 
convulsion, demolishing the fabric of society, but by the tendencies 
of nature and the arrangements of Providence, slowly yet surely 
accomplishing the happiness of man. The change will be certain 
indeed, as the revolution of the seasons, but gradual as the "-rowth 
of an empire. 

It is equally true, in the second place, that by elevating the 
character of Africans in foreign countries, the civilization of their 
native continent may be greatly and rapidly promoted. 

If ever Africa is civilized, as it unquestionably will be, the 
change must be brought about by the return of her exiled children. 
Political revolutions, the progress of the Christian religion, and the 
establishment of colonies, are the only important means of civiliza- 
tion with which history makes us acquainted. That any political 
revolution, such as the extensive conquests of some foreign empire 
or of some native tribe, will ever accomplish the renovation of 
Africa, appears beyond the compass of probability, whether we 
consider the country to be overrun, or the barbarians to be subju- 

3 




'K. -? 



18 

>'atecl. That white men alone can never extensively propagate 
Christianity on those shores, and that colonies of white men can 
never flourish there, seems rational in itself, and has been confirm- 
ed by the experience of former efforts. If ever Africa is civilized, 
it must be by the return of her exiled children. And those exiles 
are even now beginning to return. They have planted their feet 
on the soil of their fathers, and they have found that the influences 
so deadly tothe white man, are powerless upon them. In the land of 
the slave-trade they have set up the banner of freedom, and where 
they are building their homes and cultivating their fields, the wil- 
derness echoes to their songs, and the sabbath smiles on their de- 
votions. Now in what way can you moie powerfully or more 
directly promote the civilization of Africa, than by enlarging the 
views and elevating the character of her children here, and thus 
making them at once more anxious to enjoy and more able to im- 
prove the advantages which their country is offenng them ? Or 
how can you imagine a more splendid contribution to the cause of 
human happiness, than you might make, if you would train up and 
send to Africa such men as were the Pilgrims of Plymouth, or the 
Puritans of New-Haven, — men with all that wisdom, and all that 
dauntless piefy which g;ive renown to the Winthrops and the 
"VVinslows, the Davenports and Hookers of our early history ^ 
/y "W^e see, then, that by civilizing Africa, the degradation of Afri- 
cans in other countries may be forever and completely removed ; 
and by elevating the character of these exiles, the civilization of 
their native continent may be easily effected. And if these two 
objects are thus intimately blended, so that the first can be per- 
fectly gained only by means of the second, and the complete at- 
/, tainment of the second is equally dependent on the first; it re- 
« (juires no great sagacity to reach the conclusion that any efforts 
which may aim at either, must be imperfect in themselves and in- 
ailequate to their en^l, till they shall become the parts of such a sys- 
tem of exertions as shall comprehend in its design the accomplish- 
»nenl of both. And it is equally evident, that whenever such a 



19 

system shall bie organized, everything that maybe done to give 
new impulse to any one department ofits operation, will accelerate 
the motion and increase the momentum of the whole. ^^ 

I now proceed to say, that those projects of benevolence towards 
Africa to which the attention of the American public has alreadv 
been invited, do in fact constitute such a system. The means of 
elementary instruction and the apparatus of moral and religious 
culture, which are employed on our coloured population, lie at the 
foundation of all African improvement. The societies for the ab- 
olition of slavery are continually urging the claims of these unfortu- 
nates with a zeal which scorns to be weary, and which gathers im- 
pulse from discouragement. The scheme of an African seminary for 
liberal education, which has been as yet only slightly discussed, will 
not be forgotten ; for there are men engaged in its behalf, who will 
never rest while God spares them to the world, till the chasm which 
they now lament shall have been filled up, and the school which they 
bave projected shall be seniling forth its pupils to become throughout 
the earth the noblest and most efficient benefactors of Africa. The 
efforts proposed for the improvement of Hayti, may be expected, bv 
and by, when the fever of novelty and the reaction consequent on its 
subsiding shall have passed away, to kindle among our blacks a spir- 
it of enterprise, and ultimately to bestow on the subjects of Boyer 
the happiness of a civilized and Christian people, as well as the 
honors of an independent Republic. And to consummate the sys- 
tem, the institution for which I am particularly desirous to excite 
your immediate interest, is sending back the descendants of Africa 
to the land of their fathers, that they may extend over the conti- 
nent which God has given them for their inheritance, tiie light and 
blessedness of Christian civilization. 
/ After having detained you so long, I will not exhaust your pa- 
* lience by detailing the plans, or the history, or the prospects of the 
American Colonization Society. You know that its design is to 
establish on the coast of Africa, colonics of Uai people of colour 
from America : an<l after what I have alreadv s;v:d, I need not tram 



20 

out the influence which the successful prosecution of this design 
niust have on the civilization of that continent, or on the character 
and happiness of our own coloured population. You can imagine 
for youiselves how such a colony, founded in the principles of 
American fteedom, and supported by American liberality and 
enterprise, would grow and flourish, giving a new employment 
and a new direction to commerce, adorning with villages and 
cultivated fields die land that is now half desolate with the rav- 
ages of the slave trade, and overspread with the untamed luxu- 
riancy of the wilderness. You can imagine how the rude tribes, 
gazing with astonishment on the arts of a civilized community, 
would soon become desirous of sharing in a power so wonderful; 
and being cut oft" from that traflic in each other's blood, by which 
they live, would gradually engage in those pursuits and acquire 
that knowledge widi which a people must commence the career of 
improvement. You can imagine how the light of Christian truth 
might be made to beam forth on the benighted Pagans. You can im- 
agine how the negro, here despised and broken-spirited, would there 
stand up in the full majesty of manhood, and with the inspiration 

^ A of all the motives that are stimulating you to enterprise and effort. 
You can imagine too, how all this might operate for the improve- 
ment and happiness of the African who should remain anion^us, ex- 

'^ '. citing him to industry, and bestowing upon him the consciousness 

of wider and higher capacities. Leaving all this to your reflec- 
tions, 1 will only say, that tliough the society has contended from 
the beginning, and is stdl struggling with grievous embarrassments, 
its disappointments have been fewer, its calamities less terrible, 
and its success more rapid, than ever attended the progress of any- 
similar enterprise. It has obtained a rich and beautiful territory, 
adequate to all its present purposes. It has succeeded in planting 
there a colony, now consisting of nearly four hundred individuals 
who are rapidity preparing the means of sustenance, not only for 
themselves, but also for the tliousunds who are anxious to join 
(heiu. 



21 



So far as the experiment has been conducted, it has been sue 
cessful ; and all that the managers now need, for the rapid prose- 
cution of their designs, is the voice of public opinion to cheer them 
on, and to direct, for their assistance, the energies of our national 
councils ; the contributions of the benevolent, to give them strength, 
and the prayers of the churches, <o call down upon them the bles- 
sing of heaven. The voice of public opinion in favor of this enter- 
prise, is becoming louder and louder. In every section of our 
country, the ministers of Jesus have been pleading for it to day. 
From hundreds of churches the cry of supplication has gone up to 
heaven in its behalf. And not a few are the freemen, who, in the 
midst of their rejoicing to day, have remembered the miseries of 
Africa, and oftered their contributions for her relief. Can you 
withhold from such an enterprise 2/owr voice of approbation ? Caa 
you, if you pray for any thing — can you refuse to pray for this un- 
dertaking ? Can you look round on the abundance wherewith God 
has blessed you, and refuse to bestow some little oftering in belialf 
of such a cause ^ y 

I have now Completed my design. I have not indeed spoken of 
the awful curse of Heaven on our own land, or of the measures 
which MUST speedily be adopted for its complete and eternal 
abolition. These things, if God shall give me strength, and 
opportunity, I owill bring more distinctly to your notice at some 
future period. All that I designed for this occasion, I have done. 
I have set before you the condition and character of those for 
whom I plead ; anil I have told you how we may operate for the 
alleviation of that misery, and the removal of that degradation 
which I have led you to contemplate. And, surely, if it is the no- 
blest attribute of our nature, which spreads out the circle of our 
sympathies, to include the whole family of man, and sends forth 
our affections to embrace tlie ages of a distant futurity, it must be 
regarded as a privilege no less exalted, that our means of doing 
good are limited by no remoteness of country, or distance of dura- 
tion, but we may operate, if we will, to assuage the miseries of an- 



^. ^ 



father hemisphfere, or to prevent the necessities of an unborn gene 
ration. The time has been, when a man might weep over the 
wrongs of Africa, and he might look forward to weep over the 
hopelessness of her degradation, till his heart should bleed ; and 
yet his tears would be all that he could give her. He might relieve 
the beggar at his door, but he could do nothing for a dying conti- 
nent. He might provide for his children, but he could do nothing 
for the nations that were yet to be born to an inheritance of utter 
wretchedness. Then, the privilege of engaging in schemes of mag- 
nificent benevolence, belonged only to princes, and to men of prince- 
ly possessions : but now, the progress of improvement has brought 
down this privilege to the reach of every individual. The institu- 
tions of our age are a republic of benevolence, and all may share 
in the unrestrained and equal democracy. This privilege is ours. 
We may stretch forth our hand, if we will, to enlighten the Hindoo, 
or to tame the savage of the wilderness. It is ours, if we will, to 
put forth our contributions, and thus to operate, not ineffectually, 
for the relief and renovation of a continent, over wliich one tide of 
\nisery has swept, without ebb, and without restraint, for unre- 
membered centuries. It is ours, if we will, to do something 
that shall tell on all the coming ages of a race which has been 
persecuted and enslaved, trodden down and despised, for a thou- 
sand generations. Our Father has made us the almoners of his 
love. He has raised us to partake, as it were, in the ubiquity of 
his own beneficence. Shall we be unwortliy of the trust? — God 
forbid ! 



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